Friday, November 4, 2011

The Dynamics of Online Love: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places?

The Dynamics of Online Love:  Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places?
Robert J. Peterlin
Gonzaga University

The Dynamics of Online Love:  Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places?
            In the mid 1970’s singer Johnny Lee lamented about looking for love in all the wrong places. Lee sang about searching for love in the “singles bars” where “good time lovers were never true.”  Little did we know in the mid 70’s that yesterday’s singles bars would become today’s Match.com. But if Johnny Lee were to subscribe to Match.com today, would he still find good time lovers are never true? This paper attempts to answer that question. Toward that end, the paper focuses on reasons why people might choose CMC environments to establish loving relationships, focuses on aspects of online romance and interpersonal attraction, focuses on an attempt by the online dating industry to create a science of dating, and finally, provides a personal example of online dating that, in concert with the CMC literature, has led me to conclude that online dating is a viable venue for finding love in the 21st Century.
Reasons to Look for Love in CMC Environments
            We begin our search for love in online dating services by surveying the CMC literature identifying reasons why people might consider using CMC as a personal means of communication.  Walther (1996), as stated in Lengel, Thurlow and Tomic (2009, p. 53), coined the term hyperpersonal communication in CMC to describe how CMC can be perceived as being more friendly,  more social, and more intimate than face-to-face communication.  Walther identified three reasons why people might perceive CMC as more enjoyable than face-to-face encounters: members of an online group may think they share more similarities than they do; members of an online group can relax about the way they look because of the visual anonymity CMC affords them; and, members of an online group can slow down the composition of their messages in a more thoughtful process (Lengel, Thurlow & Tomic, 2009, p. 53).  In addition, Palme (2000), as also stated in Lengel, Thurlow and Tomic (2009, p. 59), identified comradeship, defined as the ability to counter loneliness, as an attraction to CMC. 
            Although some scholars—particularly those employing the cluelessness model—question the quality of interpersonal communication in CMC environments due to the lack of nonverbal cues, Walther’s Social Information Processing model of CMC refutes the cluelessness model by showing that over time, people compensate for the lack of nonverbal cues by developing new ways of “verbalizing relational content” (Lengel, Thurlow & Tomic, 2009, p. 51). At the very least, the CMC literature clearly makes a case for the sustainability of interpersonal CMC.
Online Romance and Interpersonal Attraction
            Although the literature makes a case for sustainable interpersonal CMC, the question arises as to whether a more intimate form of interpersonal communication can be established and sustained through CMC.  Patricia Wallace (1999), as stated in Lengel, Thurlow and Tomic (2009), identifies four reasons why people might consider CMC as a proper mode for establishing romantic relationships: the promise of future interaction; the promise of associating with like-minded people; the promise of self-esteem and humor; and the promise of self-disclosure and intimacy (pp. 139-140).
With respect to the promise of future interaction, just as with offline communication, in CMC the frequency of interaction appears to be a valid predictor of the possibility for intimate relationship (Lengel, Thurlow & Tomic, 2009, p. 139).  With respect to the promise of associating with like-minded people, the literature indicates that people who share similar attitudes and ideas are more likely to be attracted to each other (Lengel, Thurlow & Tomic, 2009, p. 139).  With respect to the promise of self-esteem and humor, the literature indicates that people who are attentive and who use humor in their interpersonal CMC are more socially attractive (Lengel, Thurlow & Tomic, 2009, pp. 139-140). Finally, with respect to the promise of self-disclosure and intimacy, the literature indicates that the anonymity of CMC allows people to let their guards down so that they can share a great deal more about themselves in a shorter period of time than if they were involved in face-to-face communication (Lengel, Thurlow & Tomic, 2009, p. 140). Despite all of this good news about the viability and sustainability of CMC relationships, does CMC provide any guarantees for finding love online? We turn next to “the science of love.”
The Science of Love
            CMC has given rise to a proliferation of online dating services many of which claim they unite people based on the “deep qualities” that bind people together (Frazzetto, 2010). In short, these dating services sell the science of love packaged with a promise to fulfill a basic human curiosity—a need to predict the future.  Among these services are science-based dating services such as ScientificMatch.com and GenePartner.com both of which go a step further by prescribing romance, emotional compatibility, and loving relationships based on genetics that are supposedly responsible for human attraction (Frazzetto, 2010).  Any claim to guarantee a match is dubious in its own right. But a claim to market compatibility on genetics is traveling down even a more slippery slope. Love is often not respectful of laws, of nature, or of predictability.
A Personal Story
            I end this paper with a personal story. I began periodically using online dating services in 2001 when I had just turned forty.  I was never one to frequent bars or other establishments where one would go to find potential life partners, but I recognized that I wanted to find companionship.  I had heard of the various online dating services, many of which were new at the time. YahooPersonals provided a relatively inexpensive service. It made no claim to match people on “deep levels;” however, participants were asked to fill out a personality profile that provided the basis for being matched with potential partners.  I had several CMC relationships through YahooPersonals over the years. In a number of these relationships I found myself resonating with Walther (1996). In particular, I was amazed at how little the conversations focused on looks. At the time, I was approximately one hundred pounds overweight; however, the lack of visual cues allowed my potential partner and I to focus more on my strong verbal skills, a quality that often provided the basis for my potential partner’s attraction.  I was also amazed at how quickly the relationships moved while engaging in CMC.  Being a private person, I was not comfortable with the rate of encroachment into my personal life. 
            It was this encroachment into my personal space that led me to give up on the online dating experience for many years until May, 2011.  At 49, I again felt the mid-life nudge for companionship.  So I subscribed to Match.com. Within a week, I was linked up with a woman with whom I shared the same profession, similar hobbies, similar senses of humor, and similar outlooks on life.  I found myself more attracted to these “birds-of-a-feather” qualities, as quantified by Wallace (1999), than any of the other qualities and attractions afforded by CMC.  Subsequent face-to-face interaction has made it clear that I am in love with this woman, and we are moving toward a more loving, and committed relationship.
            My story is one that concludes with a happier tune than Johnny Lee’s. My song would be titled “Lookin’ for Love in All the Cyberspaces,” and my lyrics would celebrate the “cyberspace” where “good time lovers were more real, more loving and more true” than I could ever imagine. There is no science to love, so I recognize there are no guarantees. But I like my chances better than if I were hanging out in the singles bars where good time lovers were never true.

References
Frazzetto, G. (2010). The science of online dating. Retrieved November 1, 2011 from http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n1/full/embor2009264.html
EMBO reports (2010) 11, 25 - 27 doi:10.1038/embor.2009.264.
Lengel, L., Thurlow, C., & Tomic, A. (2009). Computer mediated communication:
     Social interaction and the internet. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. (Original work
     published 2004).

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